Healing Love

by Jennifer Slattery

  Upon reaching the fence, she paused and searched for the easiest way out. Lolita, who now stood on the sidewalk, watched with wide eyes. She grabbed a stick and used it to hold down some of the line. Brooke shook her head, and Lolita tried again, this time pressing down from the top. A barb scraped against her arm. She yelped and jumped back.

  “Un momento!” Lolita raised a finger then spun around. She raced around the corner.

  The frail child grew heavy in Brooke’s arms. Flies continued to buzz around her, and she shook her head, careful not to disturb the disoriented girl.

  Voices neared, and soon, Lolita, Pastor T, Carmela, Ubaldo, and many others gathered before her. Ubaldo’s deep eyes locked on hers. He stepped forward and held his arms out. Fighting a sudden desire to cling to the child, she handed her over. Then with Pastor T’s and Alberto’s help, she slipped through the fencing and followed everyone back into the orphanage.

  The children hovered around, trailing them as they made their way through the courtyard. Everyone spoke in hushed whispers.

  “What happened?”

  “Where’d you find her?”

  “Is she the sister that girl talks about?”

  “Will she be okay?”

  The orphans pressed forward, raising on tiptoes and craning their necks.

  “Fatima?” Dinora, sitting on the ground in a far corner, jumped to her feet and ran forward, trying to push through everyone. “Fatima?” A slew of Spanish words tumbled from her mouth.

  Alberto knelt and turned her toward him. He spoke to her in Spanish. Although Brooke couldn’t decipher his words, the gentleness in his tone conveyed love.

  With a heavy sigh, she followed the others and Ubaldo inside.

  A tendon in Ubaldo’s jaw twitched as he stepped around a threadbare couch, then paused. He looked from one closed door to the next.

  Carmela came to his side. “Lay her on the bed in there.” She pointed to the room where they’d nursed Dinora. “Now that Dinora is feeling better, we’ll move her upstairs with the others.”

  He nodded and opened the door with his foot. Brooke followed, her urge to hold this child, to pray for her, to sing over her, welling with such force, her chest ached.

  As she crossed the threshold, Pastor T grabbed her by the arm. His eyes were soft. “Carmela and Alberto will care for the child. We need to go.”

  She tensed. Shook her head. “Not yet. Please, give me a minute.” She lifted her chin. “Please, Pastor T. I need to be here.”

  “I’m sorry, but I need to get back to the hotel so the kids can Skype their parents. I promised—”

  Carmela swept in, speaking Spanish and carrying a bowl of water and a dishtowel.

  Ubaldo faced Pastor T. “I can take you and the others back to the hotel then return for Brooke.”

  Alberto said something, glancing from Ubaldo to Pastor T.

  Ubaldo nodded then addressed the pastor. “I would like to stay. To pray. He believes, should the girl awaken, she will be less frightened if she sees a familiar face. Alberto will drive you and your team back to the hotel. And I’ll bring Brooke later.”

  Pastor T rubbed his forehead.

  Brooke wrung her hands. She couldn’t leave. Not yet.

  The pastor glanced toward Aubrey and her friends. “I don’t know. What about your roommates?”

  “They can come to my room.” Barb stood in the doorway, chewing on her thumbnail. Children and teens gathered behind her, talking softly and peering through the doorway.

  The pastor pulled on the skin of his neck, looking first from Ubaldo then to the teens.

  Brooke held her breath. Her leg muscles twitched as she anchored her feet to the tile flooring.

  Finally, the pastor released a gust of air. “All right, but let me know when you get back. And don’t stay too late.”

  She suppressed the urge to hug him. “Thank you.”

  She moved toward the bed, and Ubaldo stepped aside. While Carmela drizzled water on Fatima’s cracked lips, Brooke knelt in prayer. As she prayed, an overwhelming sense of love overtook her—a love so intense it seemed to inflate her. A hand slipped over hers. Ubaldo knelt beside her, head bowed, lips moving in silent petition. And in that moment, she was drawn to him even more. The longer they knelt, shoulder to shoulder, the deeper her connection to him, to the child, to Christ, felt.

  Perhaps an hour later, Carmela tapped Brooke’s shoulder, speaking in Spanish.

  Ubaldo translated. “She needs to get the other girls to bed and see how Dinora is doing.”

  Brooke nodded. “Tell her I’ll watch over Fatima.”

  “For another hour, then we must go.”

  And tomorrow, she would leave. She swallowed, tears falling freely. He touched her arm, his gaze locked on hers. As if he could read her thoughts. Feel her pain. When Carmela left, he remained by her side. Silence filled the room as Brooke dipped the rag in the water and brought it to Fatima’s mouth, rehydrating her one drop at a time. The child’s eyelids fluttered.

  The one song Brooke knew in Spanish came to mind, and she leaned forward. Sang softly. She smoothed the hair from the girl’s face with one hand while continuing to drip life-saving water into her mouth with the other. Her heart echoed the words of each verse as she cried out for mercy and healing and, when the time came, for the strength to leave.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Oh, Fatima.” Brooke reached for the girl’s hand, so small and warm. What if they hadn’t found her when they had? She wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

  Ubaldo touched Brooke’s shoulder. “It’s late. We must go.”

  She gave a slow nod. Her legs pricked as she stood, the blood once again flowing freely. How long had she knelt? She glanced at her watch. 11:30. Her last night in El Salvador. Her last night with this precious child. She looked at Ubaldo again and a dull ache radiated through her chest.

  Her last night with Ubaldo.

  With one hand to her back and the other on her elbow, he guided her from the room and closed the door. “She’ll be okay. Carmela and Alberto will take good care of her. They’ll love her as if she is their own, and they’ll teach her the love of Christ.”

  Footsteps shuffled on the stairway, and Carmela emerged wearing a purple bathrobe over nightclothes. The skin around her eyes sagged and dark shadows spread beneath them. At the bottom step, she paused and clutched the arm rail.

  Ubaldo came to her side. “Are you all right?”

  The woman looked so tired, and her breath sounded labored. Could Carmela, frail as she appeared, care for Fatima? But if not her, then who?

  Carmella squeezed his hand. “These old bones do not take stairs as easily as they once did, but I am well.” She glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “And Fatima? How is she?”

  He offered a gentle smile. “Sleeping and she’ll be fine until morning. You must get some rest as well.”

  “Will you return?” A yawn contorted her face.

  He laughed. “After I take the Americans to the airport.”

  She nodded and turned to Brooke, opening her arms wide. “Hasta Luego?”

  Brooke swallowed, and studied her hands. “Yo no se.” Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know.”

  Carmela cupped her face in her hands and kissed her on each cheek. “Such a beautiful child of God.”

  Ubaldo cleared his throat. “We must go before Pastor T worries.”

  ***

  Ubaldo suppressed a heavy sigh. How could he feel such intense emotions for a woman he’d known for such a short time? And a North American at that?

  He couldn’t let her go. Say goodbye, and yet, he was powerless to keep her.

  Guiding Brooke by the elbow, he led her through the inner courtyard to the sliding medal door, now bolted. Carmela joined them and pulled a set of keys from her bathrobe pocket. While she freed the padlock, he looked back toward the living quarters. In the pale moonlight, faces peered from each second-story window.

 
; Brooke stared at the girls, a lone tear trickling down cheek. He thumbed it away, traced the soft contours of her face. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he groaned inwardly. Oh, to kiss her! To taste her tears and pull her against him.

  Never to let go.

  He leaned toward her, his breath shallow, lifted her chin. Ran the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip.

  The door clanked open, and she startled. Took half a step back and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

  Carmela. He’d been so mesmerized by Brooke, he’d forgotten she was there.

  He closed his eyes, trying to gain some emotional distance. Motioned with his head toward the street.

  Brooke hugged Carmela one more time before falling into step beside him. At the van, he held her door open for her, then rounded the vehicle and slid in. A heavy silence pressed down on them as they drove back to the hotel. She sat with her face toward the window, dabbing her tears with a wadded tissue.

  She turned to him with red-ringed eyes. “There’s a verse my father used to say to me every night before I went to bed. He told me if I held on to it, made it my life verse, everything else would fall into place.” She spread her wadded tissue in her lap and smoothed out the wrinkles. “It’s Ephesians 2:10. For you are…” Fresh tears fell.

  “God’s masterpiece.” He finished for her. “Created anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things God planned for us long ago.”

  She nodded. “He said God has a plan for each of us.” She paused. “I kept that verse with me through high school and college. Repeated it often during graduate school—almost like a good luck charm.”

  The headlights stretched before them, piercing the thick cloak of darkness and reflecting off the oil-sheened street.

  She picked at a cuticle. “And Psalm 139 tells me God’s in control—that each day of my life is written in His book before one of them came to be.”

  Raindrops splotched on the windshield, growing in momentum. He turned on the wipers, the steady swish-plunk merging with the rhythmic pattering of rain on the van roof.

  “Do you believe that?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That God’s in control of all this?”

  “I believe God’s in control, yes.”

  “Then why does He allow girls like Dinora and Fatima to suffer? Is this—death, hunger, pain—all part of His plan? And if not, why doesn’t He do something about it?”

  Something told Ubaldo her question extended beyond tonight and her experience in El Salvador. “I believe God’s in control, but no, I don’t believe our world runs how He intended it. He created a very good world free of sin, death, and suffering, but we messed it up when we rebelled against him. I don’t understand where man’s choice and God’s sovereignty merge, or how all that works. But I know He provided a solution in His Son. Jesus Christ.

  “And I know He’s called us to show His love to others, especially the hurting. The orphans. That verse in Ephesians says we were created anew in Christ Jesus to do the works God planned. I believe that’s where we see the line in the sand. It’s when we’re in Christ Jesus—in His will and surrendered to His plan—that our lives begin to operate according to His purpose. But there will always be those who are not in Christ Jesus.”

  He turned off the main road and parked outside the heavy metal door securing the hotel grounds. “All we can do is focus on our part, trusting God to work it all out in the end.”

  “I just wish I knew what my role is.”

  “He’ll show you when the time is right.”

  Ubaldo honked and waited for the hotel clerk to let them in. The rain lessened to a steady drizzle, the windshield wipers streaking the glass. Clusters of stars re-emerged as clouds receded.

  The metal door in front of them screeched open, and the clerk soon appeared holding a shotgun. His stance relaxed when his gaze fell first to the van, then to Ubaldo. He nodded and motioned them in, then closed the door behind them.

  The van bounced as Ubaldo sloshed through the parking lot puddles and pulled to the curb. “Here we are.” He turned to face her, his gaze sweeping across her shiny eyes to her pink-tipped nose before resting on her rose-tinted lips. The lips he’d almost kissed. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Her gaze latched onto his. As if …

  He leaned closer, his pulse accelerating. Close enough to feel her warm breath on his face. She titled her chin, and he reached for her. Placed his hand on the back of her head, twined his fingers in her soft, silky hair. Lowered his mouth to hers, his kiss tentative at first. But then she reached for his neck, sending a jolt of electricity through him. He closed his eyes and deepened his kiss. Knowing all too soon, their kiss, and whatever was building between them, would end.

  He’d have to release her. For good. But he’d never forget her, nor would his love for her lessen.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Fatima stirred. She clung to her dreams and the image of the beautiful woman who occupied them. The sound of someone singing, quiet and sweet, replayed in her mind. If only she could remain asleep forever, but strange voices caught her attention. She stretched, and her hand brushed against something soft. With a start, she opened her eyes. Bolted to an upright position and scanned her surroundings.

  Where was she? A steady throbbing pressed against the back of her eyes, although with less force than before, and a wave of nausea swept over her. She swallowed down a surge of bile, peeled off the sheet covering her, and struggled to her feet. Dizziness hit, and she grabbed onto the side of the bed.

  Leaning against the mattress, she studied the small room. A faint green, like the color of newly budded leaves, tinted the cinder block walls. An embroidered cloth with elegant letters hung above a shelf lined with sheets, towels, and blankets. A wooden cross, fashioned from twigs and twine, decorated the wall beside her.

  She turned and ran her hands along the smooth sheets stretched across a bed much like she’d seen in a glossy magazine. To her right a bowl, pitcher of water, and a filled cup sat on a small table. She licked her lips. Heart hammering, she looked around. Where was she? How’d she get here?

  Bits and pieces of the previous day came back. Of being carried and looking through a daze into kind, blue eyes. Of voices—some low and tinged with concern, some in Spanish, others using words she didn’t understand.

  She touched her cheek, remembering the feel of a gentle hand brushing back her hair. Remembering drops of liquid seeping through her cracked lips and the sense that someone had stayed with her. She turned to the beam of light streaming through the window, then back to the closed door in front of her. The children’s home. She was in the children’s home. With Dinora! Oh, Dinora!

  She whirled around and lunged for the door. The knob wiggled, and she froze, her nerves on full alert. The door swung open, and there stood the woman Fatima had seen in the kitchen. She carried a plate of beans and rice, the rich aroma filling the room.

  She smiled. “Hello, Fatima. I’m Carmella, but many of the girls here call me Mama.”

  How did this woman know her name? Had her sister—? She tensed. Peered around Carmela and through the door behind her. “Where is Dinora?” A few girls gathered in the center of the room, pulling up socks and brushing their hair. Voices indicated the others weren’t far away.

  “You rest, my child. And eat. I will bring your sister to you shortly.”

  “No! I want my sister!” She thought about running out, but the woman blocked the exit. And she hadn’t the energy to go far. Or fast.

  “You will see her soon enough, my love.”

  “I want to see her now! Why won’t you let me?”

  A man appeared and took the plate of food from Carmela. Fatima trembled, avoiding his gaze, and stared instead at his heavy boots. A few girls gathered behind him, whispering to one another. Dinora wasn’t with them.

  Carmela came forward and placed a warm, gentle hand on Fatima’s back. Rubbed in slow circles. “Sh. Everything is fine.” S
he led her to the bed and lifted her onto the mattress. “I will get your sister. I promise. But right now, you must rest so you can regain your strength. And make sure to eat slowly. Otherwise you will get sick. I think your stomach is not used to food.”

  The man followed, grabbed the bowl of water from the nightstand, and set the plate of food in its place. The scent of garlicky broth filled Fatima’s nose and made her stomach growl.

  Carmela laughed and smoothed Fatima’s hair. “See, your stomach agrees with me. You must eat.”

  Her mouth watered. How long had it been since she’d had a hot meal? Or a meal at all, for that matter?

  With no choice but to comply, she pressed her back to the wall. Watched the woman leave and close the door behind her.

  She swallowed past a dry, scratchy throat. She reached for the plate and chose the water instead. Grabbing the cup in both hands, she brought it to her mouth. She fought the urge to down it in one gulp and drank and ate slowly, like the woman had said.

  Footsteps drew near, and the door creaked open. Dinora stood on the other side, holding Carmela’s hand.

  “Dinora!” Fatima dropped her plate on the nightstand and sprang to her feet. A wave of dizziness fogged her vision. She reached for the bed for support.

  Her sister squealed and ran toward her. Hugged her with enough force to knock Fatima backwards onto the bed.

  Laughing, she sat up, holding her sister close.

  “I will leave you to get reacquainted.” Carmela slipped out and closed the door behind her.

  Fatima waited until the footsteps dimmed into silence. “Where are we?”

  Dinora gave a toothy smile. “The house for God’s children.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The God of Hagar found us. He blessed us, just like that woman from the market said He would.”

  Fatima stared at the cross hanging on the wall, thinking of the man from her folded paper and the blood dripping from his head, hands, side, and feet. She looked back to Dinora and took the child’s hands in her own.